Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits

by David Denby

Book Overview

- An acclaimed and thoughtful author: David Denby has been writing insightful film reviews since the 1970s. Formerly a columnist for The Atlantic and New York magazine, he has been with The New Yorker... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416599452
• ISBN13: 9781416599456
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

WONDERFUL BOOK

I love this book, it is refreshing after an onslaught of afternoon TV and gossip rags which I took part in recently. (Never again.) I love how Denby differentiates angry, necessary Jonathan Swift-type "snark" from empty-headed bad snark, which has taken over a lot of the media and is trivial, small-minded, and nasty.

Compact Clever and Courageous

Snark: Nasty, and downright personal criticism; once a rough tumble device in societies of Ancient Greece and Rome for those who moved in the literary and political circles now Anyone once you are lined up in a snaker's sights they will attack you for the least of causes, no holds barred, nothing is beneath their shoddy low brow view,. So warns David Denby film critic of The New Yorker. This is written from a USA perspective but is valuable to the other readers in English not just as a warning but as an excellent brief view of American literature. Mr. Denby is to be congratulated for taking on the current fashion for using snark as a cheap pseudo journalistic way of pretending to be witty, all knowing and of course cynical. For in doing so he is bound to ruffle a lot of feathers and so become the target. However you can tell by the confident, measured and witty prose that he is not in the least put off by this, and can dish out the biting criticism in a more erudite and literate way than these lesser folk. This slender volume is a concentrate of the definition of snark, its historical highs, some of its more adept practitioners and to the current wretched low use it is put to. Thus there are so many levels on which to enjoy this read; a literary history; brief essays of writers who have worked in this style, such as Juvenal, Pope, Swift, Tom Wolfe and Mencken; and most importantly an education into just what damage and lowering of standards the current crop of Internet denizens are causing to literature, humour, often the personal reputations of essentially harmless folk and political debate, the latter point is rather chilling when placed in the context of The Great Medical Reform Shouting Match currently going on in the USA. His main target are those who hide behind the cloak of the Internet, and from this fogy place can snipe spitefully without any recourse to accuracy, transmuting rumour and gossip into a fool's gold version of fact, managing to weave racism and misogyny into their webs In addition to being entertaining and informing Mr Denby makes you think as you read for he does not condemn snark outright only the cheap and uncalled for usage. He loves as much as anyone to see the pompous, hypocritical and false savaged and pulled low, but only in those areas in which they deserve it. So don't try and rush through this nodding with righteous enthusiasm, you'll see snark use upheld and a few sacred beasts swatted (Ohmigosh -Private Eye!!). A valuable addition to the fight against dumming down, sound bites and the creep of nastiness for its own vacuous sake.

Interesting & Necessary, & altered my perception

I ordered this book thinking I knew what to expect, mildly interested. Instead, I found it emotional and often painful, because it's so true. More importantly, it made me evaluate my own behavior, & question what I do when *I* am anonymous. (and usually, I'm not - it took me a long time to stop using my real name for log ins) Well worth reading, and perhaps more of a self-evaluation book than I'd imagined. Thank you, Mr. Denby!

Snark is a welcome and fascinating analysis

David Denby's "Snark" provides a thorough and welcome analysis of a phenomenon coursing through the media. Denby does not "go gentle into that good night" -- he protests, objects, and deconstructs the nature of meanness in cultural conversation in an enjoyable and thought-provoking book. In our radio interview yesterday on WPKN, he spoke of the gratuitous insults becoming more and more ubiquitous on the internet; often planted anonymously. He wants to preserve satire, spoof, and sarcasm -- just not the unbalanced and casual barbs that have no substantive benefit to anyone.